“A lot. Notes from decades ago. Tech records. I finally tracked them down.”
“And gave them to Terric?”
He nodded again. “I might have scanned copies for myself.”
I grinned and slid him a sideways look. “I forget how underhanded you can be. You make me proud. Going to give me a peek?”
“I’ll send them over later today.”
“Good. So, when are you going to ask Terric out?”
“What? Did he say something about me?”
“No,” I said. “You like him. He likes you. Ask him out. Worst he can say is no.”
“He did.”
“What?”
“He said no.”
I glanced back at the house. “Recently?”
“Couple months back. He says he’s not interested in a relationship. That he likes me as a friend.” He winced. “So that’s that.”
“Really?” I was tied to Terric’s emotions. I knew he most certainly didn’t only like Dash as a friend. I wondered why he was lying to him. “My bad, then. Sorry. I don’t mean to meddle.”
Dash chuckled. “You always mean to meddle.”
“Not always.”
He just raised an eyebrow. “Think we’ll find Davy alive?”
“I don’t think he’s dead. Eli was having too much fun with him. Davy’s useful to Eli or his bosses in some way.”
“You’d think things would be different,” he said. “Magic gets healed so people can’t use it to destroy. And instead of considering that a blessing, or a warning, people just find a new way to use magic to destroy.”
“We are determined little bastards, aren’t we?”
Terric stepped out of the house and Dash pushed away from the car. “That’s my cue. You take care of yourself, Shame. Go kill something, okay? You’re not looking so hot.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“To me it is. You were practically salivating over Allie back there.” He glanced over at me. “Lots of terminally ill who wouldn’t mind an end to their contract.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Also, you are a twisted, twisted man, Dashiell Spade.”
He looked away to Terric, then back at me again. “I’m a pragmatist, Shame. You have a need for death. There’s a merciful way to deal with that.”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll get right on it.”
“One of these days, you’ll listen to me. See you.”
I watched him stride off to his car, watched him not turn to look at Terric, who was headed our way, watched him get in and drive off as if he couldn’t feel Terric’s eyes following him.
“You told him no?” I asked when Terric was close enough.
“About what?”
“Dating.”
Terric paused with his hand on the door handle of the driver’s side. “Of all the things to pay attention to, it’s my love life? You seriously need a hobby, Shamus.”
“I’m just saying, you like Dash.”
“Crocheting, stamp collecting.” He snapped his fingers. “Porn.”
“What?”
“Hobby. Get one.”
“Have one. It’s bothering you. So, why shouldn’t you date Dash?”
“Why do you think he deserves that?”
“Why doesn’t he?”
Terric stared at me. The warmth and humanity drained away like a wave receding, revealing the stone cold inhumanity beneath. Apparently he had about as much control over the magic inside him as I did.
Death pushed so hard I could feel the cold of it behind my teeth. It wanted that. Wanted the magic roiling inside him. I took a deep, steadying breath, but the corners of my vision went shady and my heart thumped hard enough it was a bass drum in my ears.
We’d just used together too much. I wasn’t going to do that to Terric again. Not so soon. Not ever, if I could help it.
This was getting ridiculous. My control was in the sewer today. Okay, lately.
“Because he doesn’t deserve to be hurt,” he said. Then he opened the door and ducked into the car.
I stood there until I could breathe right again. Maybe a few of the scrub oaks by the river died. Maybe a lot of the bushes died too. It wasn’t just people I could pull life from, but people were always best.
The local vegetation was just enough to dampen the need. Barely.
If I was this close to the edge of losing control, Terric was even closer. Maybe he was right. No one deserved what he and I were. We were nothing but pain.
I opened the door and got in the car.
Chapter 6
SHAME
The house I’d won in a poker game was staked against the hills in Portland and surrounded by trees. The road snaked above it and the only way to get a good look at it was if you happened to glance up when you were navigating hairpin corners on the road below.
Terric had taken one of the spare rooms, and while he hadn’t added a single item to my living room decor, which was no longer an armory of weapons, but was definitely still thrift shop chic, he had nonetheless made himself at home here.
Why had I let him stay?
For one thing, the man liked to cook.
I considered it one of his better qualities.
“Beer and ketchup.” Terric shut the refrigerator door. “It was your turn to shop, Shame.”
I pulled out my cell phone, dialed.
“What are you doing?” he said.
“Shopping. Hey,” I said when the voice picked up on the other end. “Two large pizzas, vegetarian, pepperoni.”
Terric rolled his eyes and grabbed us both a couple beers. “You’re all kinds of class.”
I hung up, took the beer, and popped the cap. “Back atcha.”
“Call me when it gets here,” he said, walking off.
“Where you going to be?”
“Shower.”
I paced and drank. Checked on the ferret I’d inherited from Dessa, the last person I’d loved and gotten killed.
The ferret, Jinkies, was asleep, curled up in the soft cotton blanket Terric had bought him.
Jinkies used to belong to Dessa’s brother, Thomas, before he’d been killed by Eli Collins under Krogher’s orders. I didn’t know what secrets they’d gotten out of Thomas, but I was pretty sure his death had proved that having Eli Collins on board to help the government track all us Soul Complements down and kill us was worth the trouble.
Of course, Eli had a slightly different story. He said the government had kidnapped him and was forcing him to kill. But I knew the guy. He liked dealing out the blood and pain.
Somehow on the way to tracking down her brother’s killer, Dessa and I had fallen, fast and hard, for each other.
Then Eli killed her.
I wandered over to my laptop set up on the table in the corner of the room. Checked messages.
Looked like I’d gotten a file from Dash.
Boy was quick.
I pulled out a chair, sat, and opened the file.
At first I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. I had expected technical manuals, or research papers from Beckstrom Enterprises.
The scanned pages were handwritten and yellowed, and didn’t look modern. Diagrams sketched glyphs I did not recognize connected together in ways I didn’t understand, all working together in a manner I could not fathom.
Why the hell was Terric looking at this?
I clicked through a few more pages until something caught my eye.
Unbinding. It was the steps of an unbinding spell, mixed with a few other spells, carved into flesh with the blood of two people.
No, with the blood of Soul Complements.
This was a spell to unbind Soul Complements.
I wondered if it worked.
“It didn’t,” Terric said from behind me.
“Whose research is it?” I turned in the chair.
Terric was shirtless, drying his hair with a towel. The Void-stone-bullet scars from our last fight with Eli were still red knots of scar tissue sprayed across his gut, crisscrossed with marks from the surgery that had saved his life.